1. The more I think about it, my answer kinda is “I used to but I don’t any more”. These days, I listen to pretty much whatever floats across my transom whenever it strikes me, but there is definitely a lot of stuff to be gained with seasonal playlists, because it makes you think about music in a different way. Not just “is this good” but “what matches the clouds and rain” and stuff like that.

2.

3. Iterate.

4. I gotta go with New Zealand because of Flight of the Conchords.

5. Didn’t grow up playing board games, so I don’t really have an opinion – I like the occasional game of Clue but that’s about it for my knowledge of board games.

6. It’s hard for me to answer the first part of that question, because I have a billion CD’s of a billion bands that put out one stellar record or several great singles, never to be heard from again (I still miss you, Valentine Killers! You’re still on my mind, Dharma Bums!). For the “otherwise got mired” part of your question, though, as mainstreamy as it sounds, I gotta go with Elvis Costello. Fortunately, his career has been long enough that it’s sine-waveish; every fallow period is followed by at least a brief spike of goodness. And most of his “fallow” periods are marked by records that others would die to have made; they just don’t stand up to the rest of his stuff in my opinion.

7. Not a video game guy, sorry.

1) A little, probably less island music, more ponderous jazz. I reads what I reads when I reads it.

2) Working my way through Poe right now, there is some really odd, fascinating stuff in there. “The Balloon-Hoax” and “Gold-bug” stand out.

3) Not so much a word, but a phrasing that has become popular in sports and is spreading. “A Derek Jeter, A Manny Ramirez..” when referring to Derek Jeter or Manny. I hear it all the time now and it makes me feel sad that Carlin is dead.

4) I’ve only ever been to Hawaii and Japan, they are both nice in their own ways.

5) Clue

6) Luniz

7) I really like Bionic Commando in a nostalgic way, but then realized it’s actually not that fun.

Hulu is going to start charging for content. I’m surprised it took them this long.

- No but I definitely start watching more seasonal movies when it comes to Halloween and Christmas.

- "Cecil B. DeMented " – It’s about a lunatic young film director and his band of young cultists who kidnap an A-list Hollywood movie star and force her to be in their underground movie. It’s about teen terrorism against the movie business.

- “Keyword” or anything involving a company talking about using social media.

- Hawaiian Islands

- Monopoly

- Creed (hahahaha)

- Anything based of a original NES game.

• Oddly, that weather pattern sounds about the same as we’ve had here in the KC Metro area, with a little more of the 40s than the 60s. The only real seasonal change to my music listening is that towards late November I break out the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas album once or twice. Reading? That cycle is a on a grander scale. I read the entire lexicography of Jonathan Kellerman in 2 weeks a few years back and have only read three non-textbooks since.

• Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (book). Couldn’t say on the film side. Un Chien Andalu is too obvious and pretty unentertaining (except the part with the friars and the dead mule).

• Post-modern. Okay, I don’t mind the word, I just hate the writing.

• New Zealand is the one I’m most interested in visiting, so I’ll go with that.

• Monopoly. Holy fuck, that’s boring. Axis and Allies, on the other hand, awesome (if you have 30 hours to sepnd on it).

• They Might Be Giants. Lots of phenomenal stuff, and lots of stuff that shouldn’t even be played during the 99th season of Bill Nye the Science Guy.

• I don’t play enough video games to answer this one. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the new Blood Bowl, but that wasn’t a series.

Not sure if this counts as a reboot, but I thought the Metroid prime series just kicked all kinds of ass at moving the game from 2D to 3D.

1. I can’t seem to justify listening to Tom Waits’ “The Black Rider” in any other season. It’s just not the same. Otherwise, I tend to bust out a bit of post-punk/rock stuff every winter, will work Mingus, Coltrane, the Lounge Lizards, and other jazz types into more regular rotation, and as it gets into winter, slip in a bit of classical.
Bonus question: I just bought a bilingual collection of Rilke, hardcover, $50, because I tend to deposit paychecks at the bookstore, or the record store, or the liquor store. He’s definitely Fall. Wallace Stevens might be too.

2. Movie, might be Survive Style 5+. Loosely interweaving goofy plotlines, centering around a man who can’t stop killing his wife (who keeps coming back with terrifying superpowers), a middle class family with awful luck, a young woman in advertising who may or may not be going crazy and is also banging a hypnotist, and Vinnie Jones running around asking people what their function in life is and then killing them.
Clip from stories 1 and 2 (AUDIO IS REALLY NSFW AT END)
Trailer
Book: Maybe Pedro Paramo, though it’s one of the few books I re-read immediately on finishing it. Loved it.

3. Probably “The Other” in an intellectual context, or “postmodernism”, both as a word and a movement and the various theories that got swept up in it.

4. Hawaii, due to lack of additional data. The San Juans might qualify too, and that’s how much I’m reaching.

5. I think I remember Sorry being kind of frustrating at times but otherwise there was no one that I particularly disliked. Monopoly I could handle because I played loose with the rules and something funny would usually happen.

6. Eh… I don’t know. Easy answers come from the period of time when I was just getting into the idea of indie rock, so I’d say Interpol, TV on the Radio (great vocalist, never as interesting as people make them out to be), and maybe The Stills, whom I had some weird fondness for briefly.

7. I would play Fallout 3 if I had a console and a TV at the moment (I don’t want to run it on my laptop), but I had all kinds of reservations about it being loyal to the first two, and the fact that they pulled the plug on Black Isle while they were nearly to an alpha. Resident Evil may qualify for a successful reboot even if the old ones were okay by me, dumb plots and weak controls and all. I also might add Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as another awesome reboot, but the ones immediately after it blew and it’s been off and on since.

Caple

The Secret of Monkey Island was recently remade and it still holds up as one of the funniest games of all time. Seriously, everybody needs to get this game so that they will be encouraged to remake other classic Lucasarts adventure games

Tetris is probably the most glorious of all puzzle games, but there’s been Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon/Pokemon Puzzle League that was pretty good, Bust A Move is pretty good, I remember Zoop being a big deal… but has anything good come out in this department in the last five years?

I dare you.

• My tastes don’t really change with the season, but I’m probably more likely to listen to more depressing music now, like Death Cab for Cutie or Alice in Chains, than I would typically. But most of my music choice come with what I’ve recently discovered more than any conscious change.

• Really poor at judging these things but I’d have to say Memento was the strangest movie because, well, I think it’s pretty obvious

• hella

• The Aleutians

• Chess. Maybe it’s just that I suck at it though

• The Strokes have never come to the same level as their first album. Third Eye Blind had an excellent first album and has since sucked. Weezer sucks now. The newer Flight of the Conchords stuff has disappointed me. Faith No More dropped off for me after Angel Dust. Maybe I’m doing this wrong though

• I’m not old enough to remember good video game franchises that could be remade. And I own a system which would have no remakes for my favorite old games. The new Perfect Dark sucked though.

And I’m going to be on a plane to DC and back this weekend. What should I use it on?

“House of Leaves,” by Mark Danielewski.

I’ve been asked about that trade rumor for three years but never answered while Ricciardi was still GM. The offer was made, though; I was there when the call came in. It was the first time I’d heard of Wright, since I wasn’t with Toronto in 2001 nor had I followed the draft when Wright was in it. JP’s reaction was, “I’m not trading a major league player for some guy in the Sally League.” And that was pretty much that. We had a chance to trade Cruz after that for Rafael Soriano, but JP refused to do it unless Seattle included Clint Nageotte, who, at the time, was a pretty hot prospect. It’s weird; I can’t remember some things that happened last week but I remember those conversations (over seven years ago now) like they just took place.

If only we had gotten Rafael Soriano in 1997!

But won’t tell you when?

As in, NFS has been terrible since Hot Pursuit 2 and needs rebooted back to when it was good(though I did enjoyed Most Wanted).

so I bought the 2008 version on ebay… but the fact that there was no 2009 game made me sad.

That probably doesn’t count as a “reboot” though.

Can’t decide between New Zealand, New Caledonia and Galapagos.

Music listening habits definitely change. Listening to a lot more Wipers, Dead Moon, Melvins, etc. these days.

Book. It’s a non-fiction account of a child sexual abuse/satanic cult case in Olympia in the 1980s that was based entirely on “recovered memories.” The details of the case are astoundingly bizarre and if you are a skeptic it will make your brain sad. Definitely worth a read.

Movie. Campy Thai western. Absolutely gorgeous colors, beautifully shot, great action sequences, weirder than shit. I love it.

Nosh

Aleutians

I like Monopoly is some contexts but it is definitely way overrated.

The Blue Album was one of the best debuts of the 1990s, Pinkerton is the best power-pop album ever realeased, and everything since then has been an embarrassment. Weezer makes me sad.

but it’s actually a pretty good game if you have the right people playing it who have an interest in making the game play quickly and like to make trades. In a game like that, Monopoly can be a bit of a frenzy, and actually fun.

Axis and Allies is damn good too as was Broadsides and Boarding Parties.

Announced in July for the 360 and PC

Best theatrical soundtrack of time or best theatrical soundtrack of all time?

On a side note, youtube is the only possible place where you can see both a vitriolic discussion on race politics and a discussion of the main character’s true sexuality on the same music video. I am aware this is harped on a lot, but someone needs to take the system of youtube commenting as a whole behind a shed and put it down.

The summer is filled with more Sublime, Bob Marley, Weezer, Beastie Boys and as the fall slides into winter it is much more Muse, The Doors, Tool, Mars Volta and classical.

With strangest movie I am going with Eraserhead. It was totally worth it. David Lynch leaves me with the cool introspective kind of haunted feeling.

Strangest book is tough. Nothing really comes to mind. I guess I have to go with The Glass Bead Game. I am not sure strange is the right word for it, probably more visionary, but the end of that book has never left my psyche.

Has anyone ever read Illuminatus?

I am not sure strange is the right word for that either, probably more imaginative.

Disappointing musician is far and away hands down Chris Cornell. Dude what happened? Talk about someone losing their edge. The Rage Against the Machine band couldn’t even save him from his trip to vaginaville.

Honorable Mention: Gwen Stefani, The Tea Party, Zack De La Rocha, Axl Rose, Dr. Dre, and I know a bunch more will come to me.

from Fred Claire

For me this year has got to be Rammstein. They took a turn for the tacky with the newest album, and I went from being a huge fan to being almost embarrassed to admit I ever liked them. The whole ‘sex-as-shock’ schtick wore thin for me a LONG time ago, and they have figured out a way to make it worse. Schlechte Form, Herren.

As for Fall listening, I seemed to have gone back to anything by Underworld and Ohgr’s Welt album for some reason. Not sure why, as I normally associate that stuff with summer, but it seems to be what’s in my car lately.

I would also be happy if I never had to hear the phrase “reality star” ever, ever again. You’re famous for not using birth control, or marrying someone, or lying. You didn’t actually DO anything to gain your notoriety, you’re just an insecure douchebag who needs the rest of the world to know your problems. Enough, already.

his experience so far in Seattle.